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Even Einstein Doubted His Gravitational Waves (astronomy.com)
Flash Modin writes: In 1936, twenty years after Albert Einstein introduced the concept, the great physicist took another look at his math and came to a surprising conclusion. 'Together with a young collaborator, I arrived at the interesting result that gravitational waves do not exist, though they had been assumed a certainty to the first approximation,' he wrote in a letter to friend Max Born. Interestingly, his research denouncing gravitational waves was rejected by Physical Review Letters, the journal that just published proof of their existence. The story shows that even when Einstein's wrong, it's because he was already right the first time.
The more you learn about him, the more you realize he was just lucky; he saw e=mc2 from Olinto de Pretto and he coasted for the rest of his life on that.
EinsteinEinsteinEinstein
Seriously, I fail to see the story here. Scientist ponders problem. Scientist comes to conclusion. Scientist publishes conclusion. Peer review gives it the go. Scientists rethinks problem. Scientist thinks he made a mistake. Peer review looks at new conclusion and thinks first solution was correct. And, lo and behold, it was.
So the scientific method works, is that what the article should tell us?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Einstein wasnt a junglebunny, was he ? Name a single famous jigaboo scientist.
We owe those neanderthals a debt we can never repay for the gift of bigger and more capable brains.
Speculating on the ground-breaking physical laws of the universe has to be fraught with doubt and self-reversal.
Ignorance is the primary reservoir of complete confidence in nature.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Do I have to be the scientist here all the time!
...except, of course, about quantum interactions ("God does not play at dice" and "spooky action at a distance"). Or the unified field theory that he spent the last decades of his life chasing unsuccessfully.
You don't have to be right every time to be a scientific giant.
Couldn't lose.
The most intelligent users here were driven away by the bad moderating that happened years ago.
Slashdot was at its peak between 2005 and 2007. Stories would routinely get 400 or more comments, rather than the 50 to 100 that is typical now. But this also meant that a lot of rather dumb users got mod points.
Back then, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails and NoSQL were the darlings of Slashdot. They were worshipped by many. Yet the more experienced Slashdotters were concerned about the lack of quality of these technologies. They were worried about how these technologies threw out years or even decades of acquired knowledge and experience. Like responsible technicians would, they voiced these concerns. Yet instead of these concerns being met with discussion and consideration, the large pro-JavaScript, pro-Ruby on Rails, and pro-NoSQL crowds attacked with downmods. They censored anything resembling questioning or opposition to JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, and NoSQL. The experienced, intelligent Slashdot users left for greener pastures.
Yet as time has passed, we see that those driven-away Slashdot users were absolutely right. JavaScript has been one of the biggest disasters known to mankind, leading to constant and invasive online tracking by advertisers, and even poorly-performing, unmaintainable server-side code. Ruby on Rails has lost its luster and became the laughing stock of web frameworks. The use of NoSQL databases have resulted in data corruption and loss, the two most inexcusable things when using database systems.
Those Slashdot users were right all along, yet they were vilified for being right. The broken moderation system here, intended originally to limit spammers, was turned against those with the most knowledge, the most experience, and most importantly, the ones who were correct. The moderation system became the very weapon which destroyed intelligence at Slashdot.
While I've been outside of the computing industry this entire time, I've watched here from the Slashdot sidelines as those people were marginalized and driven out. I've seen the intelligence level here drop as those people have been forced away. And the part that saddens me the most is that I still see it happening today. The ones we see victimized today are those who don't fully support systemd. They point out its flaws in good faith, yet are mercilessly attacked by those who support systemd. As we see systemd tearing apart well-established Linux communities, like the Debian project, we see similar destruction of the few remaining Slashdot users with experience and knowledge.
Is there hope for Slashdot? I don't know. But if there is to be salvation here, the moderation system needs a massive reworking. It should never be a tool of abuse or censorship. And those who use it as such should suffer dearly; they should never moderate ever again. For they are the ones who drove away the most intelligent users Slashdot ever had.
OK, so now we have gravity waves, but not yet the particle(s) (or whatever) that comprises them. So, progress and more questions (like, WTF propagates the gravity waves?*)
Does any of this lead us to more clarity about Einsten's Cosmological Constant, which, if I'm keeping score correctly, has been In (E's original work), Out (post 1929 removal by E after Hubble red-shift found and much discussion with contemporary Physics colleagues), ?In (late 1990s re discussions of inflation of space/time), and now ???
For those with empirically challenged minds, this is a serious question: pay attention and you might learn something.
* I use a tin can and string for this.
I'm not sure unified field theory was wrong so much as a failed search. Researchers are still looking for it today - we know Relativity and Quantum Mechanics can't both be right, suggesting that one or both will eventually be replaced by something that can be unified.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
"The story shows that even when Einstein's wrong, it's because he was already right the first time."
The story shows that if you publish both proofs and disproofs of something, you're likely to be right half the time.
Science is much more interesting to a scientist when you're proven wrong. And no scientists minds that. Not really.
And doubting your own science is exactly how you reject those millions of private hypotheses that couldn't have led to anything as they were wrong, and drove you to work out why the maths still pointed that way, and didn't lead you down the garden path of easy assumptions.
For scientists "being wrong" is merely a pathway to "being right". But sometimes they overshoot and it takes 100 years to prove them right. If it took me 100 years to prove you right, that's 99 years of everyone else thinking you could still be wrong.
Most great science begins with the words:
"No, that can't be right. Or can it?"
Einstein was no different.
It's much worse than that. Mere doubt doesn't even come close.
Don't forget that the term "Laws of Physics" is just a pop-sci term to simplify the topic for the layman. In fact there are no such laws or if they exist then they are unknowable to us. The things which we loosely call "Laws of Physics" are actually "Laws of Physicists", in other words merely mental abstractions conjured up by human minds. Reality may not even understand or obey mathematics for all we know, and it certainly doesn't take the slightest bit of notice of any "laws" which we conjure up. All we're doing is expressing (roughly) how reality is seen to behave, and we're happy when we find a good mental proxy for that behaviour within a limited range of conditions. We make only very narrow claims, and they're infinitely distant from being actual "Laws of Physics".
The role of the scientist is to dream up mathematical theories which accurately model the observed behaviour of reality, without having any idea of what's really behind the behavioral facade. And that's really mind blowing, because it's turtles invented by humans all the way down, yet it approximates to what we observe fairly well in most areas.
To make matters worse, remember that the physicist doesn't have "root access to reality", to use a Unix metaphor. When we run experiments, we are using one behavioral abstraction of reality (a "user-mode API") to probe another behavioral abstraction of reality, as we totally lack any ability to see inside that "kernel". All we can see and touch and use is reality's behaviour and we can't see how that behaviour is actually implemented. For all we know it's all implemented by incredibly fast gerbils scurrying around behind the behavioral veil. We will never know --- we don't have root. All we can do is theorize what causes certain behaviours, and these theories are created entirely out of human-invented abstractions.
And so, when we oh-so-confidently talk about (say) an electron, we know very well that what we are talking about is our model of a particular behaviour, without having any idea whatsoever what actually exists at that spot. All we know (with incredible precision) is how the thing at that spot behaves, and we can rely totally on that behaviour despite "electron" being only a human abstraction.
It really is a major accomplishment, a triumph of the mind.
People are too hasty to jump to conclusions. This is just one bit of evidence. It will take much more time and additional evidence to definitively conclude gravitational waves are the real deal.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Why is it that R and QR can't both be right? I keep hearing this idea, but I haven't heard a concise description of why this is thought to be so. Appropriate linkage, or argument, would be helpful.
Even Einstein Doubted His Gravitational Waves
Einstein's own gravitational waves were probably really, really small/weak.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Most of the general public would not know that even Einstein's publications went through peer review and there were reviewers who checked and rejected Einstein's math. Think about it.
Do we know the reviewers who rejected the flawed paper by Einstein? Or, are their names lost to history, without even a Tomb of the Unknown Reviewer?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Disclaimer: not a physicist. And, I am likelly to believe what fellows like Leonard Susskind, et. al. have to say about the universe.
A lot of things bothered Einstein that proved theoretically to be true, right?
ER = EPR
Quantum Mechanics ala Vacuum Energy
Cosmological Constant
etc.
I think it's true that before Hubble showed us that the universe is expanding, Einstein believed that the universe was a closed system. The equations that Einstein synthesized out of his brilliant mind showed us that although he didn't like some things to be true, or was perhaps apprehensive about them these turned out years later to be fundamental.
So, some experiment finally demonstrated a condition that gravitational waves exist. I think it's marvelous. It's another step forward. The Cosmological Landscape is indeed filled with Laws of Nature that we can observe and even predict theoretically. We're still struggling with the question why these laws are.
All I can feel is what an excellent time it is to be alive when these sorts of predictions can be solved.
I forget exactly, I think a big one is that they demand different levels for the vacuum energy... as I dimly recall Relativity demands it be low (zero?), which QM demands it be high, potentially infinite.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
SR rests on two postulates: first, that the speed of light is invariant, and secondly that the laws of physics are the same in all reference frames. Which do you take issue with?
Light does not need a medium to propagate through. Calling empty space "ether" just means you don't understand the issue. If we have a catastrophic vacuum decay light will still be transmitted. Einstein described the geometry of the universe; it's not that light travels at c, it's that everything is traveling at c and massless effects have zero velocity in the time dimension.
If you think otherwise, please explain how these results match the theory exactly. If your pet theory can explain that, provide an additional test which shows that your theory has greater predictive power. Until you can do the first, you're a simple crank, and until you can do the latter, you're on the wrong side of Occam's Razor.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Also let us state it correctly. Einstein did not say E= m c^2. He proved it.
Yes lets state it correctly: it is E^2=p^2c^2+m^2c^4. Only when you are stationary, and so have zero momentum, does E=mc^2. Also Einstein did not prove it. He was doing physics, not maths. What he showed was that given his postulates for special relativity it followed that E^2=p^2c^2+m^2c^4. He was then proven to be correct by experiments not by the maths alone because until those experiments were done his theory might have been nothing more than an exercise in abstract maths.
If he freaked about God playing Dice, can you imagine his reaction to Feigenbaum's constants; it was kind of like knowing how many sides the die had.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
He seemed to not like a lot of his own work:
Photoelectric Effect -> early evidence for quantum mechanics, the consequences of which he really didn't like
Cosmological Constant -> he started out with it, decided it was a bad thing and took it out, and now it's back with evidence
Gravity waves
So he was for gravity waves before he was against them. Thank you, Senator Einstein. If you were still alive, it would be fun to watch you debate Bernie Sanders, who has no particular affection for the laws of thermodynamics and other pesky reality-check-type stuff. But the debate would be very colorful, a lot like sitting near a table at an early bird buffet in Florida and listening in. No, wait, I'm thinking of that most recent PBS-hosted debate.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
(A or not A) is always true
It's not that they can't both be right (in fact, both are correct, insofar as calling a theory "correct" makes sense in physics), it's that they break down in certain regimes. This is the absolute last thing from surprising: every single physical theory we know of so far breaks down at some point. Newtonian mechanics breaks down at high speeds (relative to c). Classical mechanics breaks down in the quantum limit, and is replaced by quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics breaks down in the relativistic limit (and is replaced by quantum field theory). Most QFT breaks down at high energies, as we can only solve it in the pertubative low-energy limit.
In the case of GR and quantum mechanics, that's exactly what happens. At low energies, the two work together fine. It's at high energies and short length-scales where the two fall apart (no surprise, as again, both theories were formulated from the low-energy behavior, which is the regime we can perform experiments/observations in quite easily). This is why people are looking for some unified theory that would include both theories in the low-energy regime, and at the same time would work at high energies (this has already been done with electrodynamics and the weak force: at high energies, they become unified through the electroweak interaction). String theory, loop quantum gravity, etc. are all such attempts. So far, we've not been able to perform experiments that would be required to confirm any of them.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Tremors of the Big Bang?
BUT he was right about spooky action from a distance! He said if quantum mechanics is right, then this ridiculous thing should be true! Of course this was to indicate the corollary that QM can't be right, but then they found it!
Einstein hated QM, there's no doubt about it, but he never abandoned the scientific method in his pursuit of disproving it. In the end, he laid a significant portion of the experimental groundwork for the very thing he was trying to debunk.
Here, watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/playli...
It's a bit long but pretty good. It's The Fabric of the Cosmos, from NOVA, featuring Brian Greene. It's well worth the time investment.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This is off topic, and not a defence of anything that Einstein said, but...
"God does not play at dice"
Contrary to what most lay-people believe, quantum mechanics (QM) in no way requires that there be any random element to physics, or the universe in general.
What leads people to claim QM is "random", is the fact that QM cannot be consistent with all of the following popular beliefs simultaneously:
1) All physical laws are fully deterministic (non-random).
2) All macro phenomena (with the possible exception of man's free will) are merely emergent consequences of basic physical law; the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.
3) The future cannot be known by any means, other than predicting it by extrapolating from the present state of the physical universe.
4) If man has free will (in the strongest sense of that term), then any aspect of the future which depends upon his choices cannot be predicted with certainty before hand.
5) If there is a God, His approach to running the universe is basically hands-off: He established physical law, started things in motion, and then stood back to watch and see what would happen.
Most physicists have chosen to reconcile QM with their belief system by dropping #1. This is philosophically galling to people like Einstein, because it implies that science will never be able to completely describe or predict the behaviour of the universe. (Of course, there are many non-QM reasons that humanity's knowledge must remain incomplete, as well; for example, Gödel's incompleteness theorems.)
Ultimately QM is really just a statistical description of how sub-atomic particles behave; it does not answer the question of why they behave that way. Unless it leads to a prediction which can be tested experimentally, interpreting the significance of these statistics is the domain of philosophy, not science. Even among secular scientists, many different interpretations have been proposed; the "randomness" type (in all its many variations) is just the most popular at the moment.
The pretence (when communicating with the general public) that QM requires randomness is because the science community is predominantly deistic or atheistic, and thus uncomfortable with the grander cosmic order that is implied by any deterministic interpretation. Go too far down that road, and you might begin to suspect that there is a grand Organizer...
In contrast, the Bible plainly denies #2, #3, #4, and #5. Physical laws are not self-enforcing, but are, rather, enforced by God who is all-knowing, eternal (outside of time), and enjoys a perfect attention to detail - including the hearts of men and women.
"For all things were created by Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Colossians 1:16-17
"He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names. Great is our LORD, and of great power: his understanding is infinite." Psalms 147:4-5
"For the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked and opened to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Hebrews 4:12-13
Mathematically, QM is fully consistent with either randomness, or with a hands-on God who knows the future because he controls it. Most modern scientists simply pretend that randomness is the only possible ex
You're leaving out many worlds interpretation which is consistent with all points.
Play Command HQ online
No, that is covered in the link I offered: " many different interpretations have been proposed ".
I am not attempting to suggest that QM, alone, proves that there is a God. I do believe that it can be proven - to any reasonable standard - that there is a God, but doing so requires discussing a much wider range of even-more-off-topic issues.
As to the many worlds hypothesis - I agree that it is mathematically consistent with QM, but claiming that it is actually true is not reasonable. Justifying this claim on my part calls for the same long, off-topic discussion as proving that there is a God (and we all know it).
My points above were simply that:
1) QM does not require randomness.
2) The reason that scientists often make it sound like it does, is because this best suits their deistic/atheistic world view, as it is furthest from the truth.
I expect anyone who does a modicum of research into QM to agree with me about #1.
I offer #2 as an explanation for the confusion over #1, but don't expect anyone to agree with me without first having a long discussion about the larger moral, philosophical, and scientific context for these issues.
Unicorns don't exist. Hang on, maybe they do.
Look everyone, I'm as smart as Einstein!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And no scientists minds that. Not really.
We must be hanging around different kinds of scientist. From my point of view I've seen people with massive egos. Those egos dislike even entertaining the possibility of being wrong, and usually they get where they are because they're a) good at bullying their fellow scientists and b) good at bullying people into giving the grant money to them instead of other scientists. A lot of them are even prepared to falsify results to support their continuing grant money and research. While I agree that they are the minority, quite by definition they are a very very vocal minority. But you are correct. A REAL scientist looks forward to being proven wrong - it's almost as good as when no one can prove you wrong.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Einstein was a pantheist and he believed in Spinoza's god, but he ridiculed the god of the Bible and Torah. That said, it is rather disgraceful anybody is still quoting those books today. It is all about maintaining power and control over "the masses". It is being sustained by engineers that view humans as objects to be manipulated.
Why is it you people do not know the simple paradox of your own minds? Only true idiots would try to contain such as the entire universe within their limited and blind thought.
Even if you tried really hard to pretend you didn't believe there'd be a bit at the back of your mind that did believe - it's what causes you to not forget that you're trying not to believe. Or something.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
â€oeEnergy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.†--Einstein.
Einstein could have replaced Energy with Mass;
Casteism
Most modern scientists simply pretend that randomness is the only possible explanation, because they aren't interested in a God whom they cannot manipulate - or vivisect - a God who demands that they follow His moral laws, as the atoms obey His physical laws
No, they accept randomness because it is the simplest explanation that is consistent with experimental evidence.
There is no evidence, nor could there be, for the existence of great magician in the sky
that is not bound by the physics we observe.
Randomness is an elegant explanation for the properties of QM, taken in isolation, but the sum of human knowledge, as a whole, points in a very different direction.
We know that the physical is not all that there is, because there are many things which have no physical substance to them, and yet exist and play a major role in our day-to-day lives.
How is it that our words have meaning, and that we can perceive it? How is it that you are experiencing this conversation?
A mere sack of chemicals might indeed respond to the stimulation of the ears by stimulating the muscles of the mouth to produce complex sounds with complex mathematical correlations between the two. But, I'm not just a Chinese room; I am a living, thinking, feeling being who experiences life in a way that physics knows nothing about.
I cannot prove (to myself) that you are not just a sophisticated simulation of a human being, but I know that I am the real thing and have an immaterial soul:
"I think, therefore I am."
This is proof positive that physical law (as it is understood today) is an incomplete description of reality: we know that there is something more; the question is, what?
The mystery deepens when we take a step back and ask the question, "How can I know, or prove, anything?"
In order to reason, we must first assume that the fundamental laws of logic are valid, and that we have the faculties required to apply them with some accuracy. But, this appears to be an unfounded assumption: where did it come from? Why do we trust logic so much that it makes us angry when others are illogical?
People will often respond to this, "They've always worked for me in the past." This is circular reasoning, though - how did you conclude that they worked for you in the past? How do you know that the future will resemble the past? By the laws of logic.
Mankind's innate grasp and love of logic are a precious gift from our creator:
"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another..." Romans 2:14-15
God has written His law upon the hearts of all men and women, and a prominent feature of that law is this: "You shall not bear false witness." (To understand and obey this law necessitates some grasp of logic; otherwise "false" becomes meaningless.)
It is because of this universal law written upon our hearts, that you expect your opponent in a debate to be affected by your use (or abuse) of logic. You expect others to be ashamed when they are illogical or lie; if this were not so debate and rational argument would be a pointless exercise in all contexts.
We cannot ultimately know anything by ourselves, because no finite logical system can ever be proven to be correct, consistent, and complete by itself. An infinite regress is required, according to the likes of Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
And yet, mankind does know things: you know that it is wrong to lie. (Otherwise, why are you arguing with me?) This seed of innate knowledge - upon which all other human knowledge must rest - is itself given to us by the eternal, infinite, transcendent God of the Christian Bible who is all-wise, all-knowing, and unchanging.
But we are naturally inclined to deny this, because the same innate knowledge exposes our corrupt and sinful condition:
We know that it is wrong to lie, but we do it anyway.
We know that it is wrong to be quick to anger or hatred and seek revenge, but sometimes we do it anyway.
We know that it is wrong to commit adultery or other acts of sexu